Nils Shapiro,  a private detective,  lives in Edina Minnesota where he sometimes helps the police with things which they can’t quite do.   This time it’s a murder victim whose body was left completely covered with –   vacuum cleaner dust.   Yes.

Nils Shapiro,  a private detective, is asked by his Edina Minnesota police chief friend to help with a strange murder victim.   Maggie Somerville, an apparently loving wife and mother,  was found dead in her home,  smothered in vacuum cleaner dust…Yes.

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Gone to Dust
by Matt Goldman
2017 /  294 pages
read by McLeod Andrews
rating:   A / crime
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Nils agrees to help,  off the record,  and so begins a good old who-done-it with plenty of contemporary elements in addition to old and new-fashioned twists.  There are several suspects in compromising situations – and Maggie had a private past as well as a difficult present herself.

This was a kind of joy to read on a slow 3-day weekend Sunday when there’s nothing going on and the blueberry muffins are in the oven.  Although there are no real shoot-outs or chase scenes and only two bodies,  besides, this is NOT a cozy even if there is a wee (very wee) bit of semi-romance going on.  I’d call it a gentle procedural maybe –  but not to gentle.

So …  yes,  I’ve got Book 2,  Broken Ice,  in the Wish List and it might come up fairly quickly.  🙂